Synopsis of book

Prominent Iranian journalist Houshang Asadi was arrested in 1981. This was no new experience for Asadi: as a political activist during the shah’s rule, arrest had been a familiar inconvenience. But he supported the new Islamic Republic – there must be some mistake? Little did Asadi know he was to spend the following six years of his life in prison – nor that he would be brutally, mindlessly tortured. Brother Hamid, as Asadi came to know his torturer, stopped at nothing to extract his ‘confessions’ – that he was a spy for the Russians, a spy for Britain, a spy for anyone or anything. Brother Hamid went on to become an ambassador for Iran. Houshang became a fugitive, unable to escape the searing pain on the soles of his feet. Journey with him through this astonishing period of history, as Iran swung from one political

extreme to the next. Discover how, through his accidental friendship with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, a fellow cellmate under the shah’s regime, Asadi was saved from execution – and confronts his torturer one last time through these letters. Profoundly upsetting, immeasurably important – Asadi’s story demands to be heard